.22LR ammo -- Ya don't need to often clean the bore.

[PT7]

I must admit I got unexpected good results with cleaning my SGC after being at the range today. I shot 90 rounds, mostly Federal 38gr CP-HP and American Eagle 38gr CP-HP. So I was going to post a Q to the Forum to see if others thought these ammo brands shoot clean.

First however, I did an internet search with this question: "What is clean .22 ammo?" Found an interesting TheHighRoad.org discussion back in 2011: https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?t ... mo.575970/ Many similar responses to this thread's Q, "Clean burning .22 LR ammo?" surprised me. These Folk said quit cleaning your .22 bore so often; it's not needed.

This representative post really piqued my interest:

"Don't clean that barrel unless you need to. Twenty-two ammo is lubed, the barrel is well protected against rust and leading in normal conditions, and the fouling doesn't hurt a thing. I read that Eley, the maker of the finest target ammo in the world, shoots tens of thousands of rounds through their test barrels for accuracy testing without cleaning.

I have some highly accurate .22s and rarely clean the barrels. They are fine. I wipe off the outside of the barrel and action. I also occassionally clean reachable parts of the inside of the action with Q-tips. When doing so I pay particular attention to the bolt face and extractor."

I know there are many opinions about cleaning a rifle. Just wondering what you Henry Folk think of the approach to clean less; not very often?

Thanks...PT7

[Mags]

Never occurred to me me that .22 ammo is/was lubed. Doesn't feel lubed. I would also think that any lube present or shed as the bullet goes down the barrel would be incinerated or scorched by the hot corrosive spent powder gases pushing the bullet out.

[bandit1250]

I have never agreed with the non-cleaning crowd. I guess it come from my Dad being a guy that believed in keeping his fire arms cleaned after using them. My bench rest shooter friends all clean there 22's after every match then shoot their fouling shots and start all over again using the same routine that they have had success with. I have kept a pretty good account of how my most accurate 22's act with clean vs. dirty bores. First thing is your rifle needs to be at least accurate enough to show your groups are better or worse as the bore gets more fouled or accurate up to a certain amount of shots. My real good shooting CZ 452's and my old Remington rifles most have a point from being clean they shoot their best from about 5 or so fouling shots to about two boxes or less of ammo before they start to open up on group size. I have a few that start to open up groups at around eighty shots. I doubt my lever rifles would show me the accuracy loss when dirty like my bolt rifles will. I have a few 39A's that might and my Henry Frontier. I am not talking about not being able to hit tin cans and large targets because that won't show any thing about your groups getting bigger when really dirty or shooting off hand. Unless off hand you can shoot like NCG. If the groups get bad enough to miss cans and such you may have other problems. Did you ever pay attention when looking through a dirty 22 LR bore that most of the fouling is at 6 o'clock in the bore? That heavy fouling at the bottom is mostly the powdered glass in the priming mix dropping to the bottom from gravity. The powdered glass is used to make the friction needed to light the powder off with the firing pin strike. It falls to the bottom of the bore and every round after it gets built up you are shooting across some pretty abrasive stuff. I had a Precision Shooting magazine that got into the barrel cleaning argument and it had examples of high round target rifles(Winchester 52's I think) that they bore scoped and the bore was egg shaped at the throat and guess where it was at. 6 o'clock on all of the ones with wear they could see. It was determined by some very experienced rim fire accuracy shooters that the abrasive powdered glass was causing this.
When shooting a variety of brands of ammo the loss in accuracy seems to come sooner than when staying with one brand. Could be the different lube they use. Some claim the lube mixture from ammo companies is like a top secret big deal. If you want to feel highly lubed ammo shoot the European brands. Keep a rag handy or don't be afraid to use your shirt tail or pants leg. My wife hates the shirt or the pants way.
Also shooting puts some heat in the barrel even with a 22 and can cause the bore to get some sweating in side from the cold to warm and back to cold. I don't want that left in my bore whether there is bullet lube in there or not. Bringing a rifle in the warm after shooting out in the cold I clean the barrel as soon as my rifle is room temp.
I have stayed with the clean is better idea since Dad started me shooting and it is still working for me so I will continue doing it the same way the rest of my shooting days. I actually get a good feeling when looking at how filthy 22 rim fires can get and how well they look inside the action and the bore when I get finished with my cleaning procedure.

[PT7]

Your simple description of the folk on one side of this debate is perfect, Bandit. Like you and your Dad, I've always been a cleaning nut, too.

I have never agreed with the non-cleaning crowd. I guess it come from my Dad being a guy that believed in keeping his fire arms cleaned after using them.

Your experience-skill-shooting rimfire rifles, as well as NCG's and others, have vastly surpassed my tiny amount of plinking during the six years I've been into firearms. Easy to total how few rimfire rounds I've shot:
1. First time shooting a Henry H001 one summer, which was my son's-in-law = 110 rounds
2. My H001M = 510 rounds
3. My current H001TLP - 2400 rounds.

A "grand" total of 3020 rounds. Just enough to get those so-so off hand groups I post in my range reports. So I haven't even shot enough to have the accounting you've kept on the accuracy of "22s with clean vs. dirty bores."

But your post gave me some new info, which I appreciate. I did not know about the powdered glass I've seen when cleaning my SGC, and what caused it. But even so, I had thought it has got to be abrasive in the bore, as you noted it is.

Yup, I shoot a variety of ammos. But I don't shoot enough to notice accuracy change, nor are my POIs that accurate. Like I said, my groups are very so-so ones.

Another thing is that I had not before heard of bore "sweating." Seems like the bore is abused in a variety of ways, not only with every bullet that goes down it!

Not having to clean a bore after shooting is appealing only that it draws on my laziness. But since I'm such a long-term cleaning nut (with many things), I'll continue to enjoy the shiny SGC bore each time I get home from the range. I agree with you that it is a quite pretty sight.

Thanks for your most interesting commentary.
PT7

[North Country Gal]

I'm one of those in the non-cleaning camp or, at least, clean only when there is an issue affecting function or accuracy. In the 60s, when I started shooting in Junior Rifle Club, we were told by our NRA instructors that there is no need to constantly be cleaning rimfires, for the reasons stated, originally. The club rifles, even the ones used in match competition by the college team, rarely had the bores cleaned.

"Don't clean that barrel unless you need to. Twenty-two ammo is lubed, the barrel is well protected against rust and leading in normal conditions, and the fouling doesn't hurt a thing. I read that Eley, the maker of the finest target ammo in the world, shoots tens of thousands of rounds through their test barrels for accuracy testing without cleaning.

I have some highly accurate .22s and rarely clean the barrels. They are fine. I wipe off the outside of the barrel and action. I also occassionally clean reachable parts of the inside of the action with Q-tips. When doing so I pay particular attention to the bolt face and extractor."

It all boils down to this: in my 50 plus years of shooting rimfire guns of every type and description, I have never ruined a rimfire bore for lack of cleaning, nor have I ever gained any accuracy improvement from cleaning a rimfire bore before shooting. Fact, not opinion, is that most rimfire bores are damaged from aggressive and unnecessary cleaning than any other reason.

When do I clean a rimfire bore? When it is necessary for proper function of the rimfire, as in revolvers and semi-autos or when a gun has been exposed to moisture. I have had barrels that were rough and poorly cut and they would lead up after many thousands of shots. These barrels, though, have been the rare exception. A properly cut and finished bore should NEVER be a lead magnet.

For those of you who can't stand the idea of a dirty bore, I get it. I understand. I can only share my 50 plus years of shooting rimfires. Each to their own, as always.

[Sir Henry]

I’m in the no clean camp with rimfire. I think a lot of the cleaning talk originated with centerfire corrosive ammo. If I shot one round in my Enfields I had to take an hour and use boiling water and ammonia to neutralize anywhere power might have blown. It gets on your hands and everywhere on the firearm AND on any tools you might have used.

If not cleaned within a few hours the bore turns dark, almost black, and pits will start to form. In the Army if you were issued a dark and pitted barrel they would be stamped so or you would be court-marshaled.

[Les]

I clean my bore after every use. It's very rare for me to use a brush, but I do use wet/dry patches on a pull-through made from nylon cord. Does it help? I've no idea, but it makes me think that it helps!

[bandit1250]

These rim fire barrel cleaning threads will probably not change any ones mind on how they take care of barrels whether you leave them dirty or clean them. We are all still going to do it the way it seems to work for us. I shoot from 7-10,000 rounds /year and have many 22's but there is my certain ones that are my go to rifles and others hardly get fired. The ones I shoot the most get a barrel cleaning when I am done for that shooting session and if going to shoot the next day and the round count was not excessive I may not clean it. But I can just walk back in my room and clean it if it looks like it is not shooting well. If you prefer not to clean barrels and shoot a lot you should at least clean the leade to keep from getting the much dreaded carbon ring. Have fun getting that out if left go to long and accuracy will suffer really bad. I have the same feelings with my barrels as my vehicles. The biggest destroyer of engines and transmissions is HEAT and DIRT. So i don't get center fire barrels hot and I don't let rim fire or center fire barrels get excessively dirty. YMMV and that is fine as everyone has to do what they feel is right for them. These barrel cleaning opinions is like "my 30-06 is a better deer rifle than a 280 Rem. or a 270 Win." They all have been killing deer for years so why change.

[Steve51]

A few months back I made a comment in a post on the subject of cleaning .22 rifles that I bought my H001 classic in 1999 and my H004 golden boy in 2001 and had shot many rounds through them and had never disassembled them for cleaning. I did clean the barrels, chambers, and bolt faces but never had taken them apart to clean.

Some of the responses made me a little ashamed that I had never done a thorough cleaning on them. A few months ago, I disassembled both rifles to clean them properly. I was truly surprised - I was expecting to find great gobs of crud from 16+ years of shooting but what I found was very little crud. Federal bulk LR ammo was used for the majority of the range outings. I did use one box of bulk Remington golden bullets (never again) and a few boxes of Winchester bulk ammo (no problems).

I will continue to run a bore-snake through the barrels & clean chambers and bolt faces as was my custom after each outing but it will probably be a few years (or never) before I do another disassembly on my Henry lever action .22's.

[BigAl52]

Im not one to clean every time I shoot either. Depends on the amount of rounds I shoot even in centerfire. If I only shoot 50 to 100 rounds I usually wait until the next time or two especially if I am just plinking clays on the bank.

[PT7]

With the different preferences for "to clean or not to clean," I learned much in this thread so far. Appreciate all the comments and good info. When I started this thread with the comments those HighRoad Folk made in 2011, I didn't even realize the "not to clean" approach was out there. Learning something new everyday regularly happens on our Henry Forum. Thanks to all.

PT7

[Mags]

.
This where I'm at too. After taking a pot shot or a few at the nutria, I usually don't clean until I feel like I've put out enough rounds that it should be cleaned or time since last cleaning makes me feel guilty. Exception is after shooting at the range, then I've put enough rounds down range to warrant cleaning when I'm done.

Im not one to clean every time I shoot either. Depends on the amount of rounds I shoot even in centerfire. If I only shoot 50 to 100 rounds I usually wait until the next time or two especially if I am just plinking clays on the bank.

[Lyman]

I put a few thousand rounds down range every month or so. I was taught at a very young age to clean after every outing. My father wouldn't have it any other way. Now many years later 40+ I still sit down and clean my guns. I am not too aggressive cleaning the bore as I only use patches 80% of the time. I do like a clean bolt face and tend to oil everything real well. I use CLP most of the time.
As far as ammo I use CCI and Federal most of the time.

[bandit1250]

It amazes me with all these opinions on cleaning or not cleaning no one ever seems to mention the "dreaded carbon ring" which is a killer on 22 accuracy and notorious for being the cause of the first shot flyer. Maybe that is why I have little to zero problems with the first shot flyer because I clean my rifles more often. The chamber and just a head of it should be cleaned for better results with your 22's. They even make special tools just for removing the carbon ring. If you don't want to clean your barrel you should at least keep up with keeping the carbon ring at bay.

[Lyman]

Good point Bandit1250, Not mine but I made one like it.

[Sir Henry]

I put a few thousand rounds down range every month or so. I was taught at a very young age to clean after every outing. My father wouldn't have it any other way. Now many years later 40+ I still sit down and clean my guns. I am not too aggressive cleaning the bore as I only use patches 80% of the time. I do like a clean bolt face and tend to oil everything real well. I use CLP most of the time.
As far as ammo I use CCI and Federal most of the time.

I have a friend that will clean rifles taken to the range which weren’t even fired. To him it is just part of the joys of shooting. That was when he was 16. He joined the Army in 2004 as a small arms repair. He is now an E-7 and in charge of battalion maintenance. He still follows that same rule if taken to the field it gets cleaned immediately upon return regardless of whether it was used.

[Blackdog]

I shoot lever action silhouette. I use a Henry .2LR, a Henry .22 Magnum and #3 is a Winchester 30-30. My normal routine is to pull a dry patch through the bore at the end of the match, clean the outsides and wipe down the exposed parts of the action. I'll clean the 30-30 with #9 till I get clean patches. The .22 Mag gets one pass with #9 and a dry patch. The .22LR gets no further cleaning.

NONE of my rifles will fire the first shot on-target. They all want to be fowled before they settle in and shoot point of aim.

Once a year I scrub the bore of all three with JB Bore paste or Remington Bore paste. This takes them down to metal, so I have to carefully refowl each of them to bring them back to competition level - typically 50 rounds each will do the trick.

In my experience a clean rifle is not as accurate as one that has been fowled before the "Money Shot."

Your mileage may vary.

M

[BobGinVA]

Blackdog....I usually hesitate to "say" anything on Henry forums as most of the folks have a tendency to care too much what their rifles look like...whereas, I'm pretty sure you and I care a whole bunch more how they shoot...I shoot lever gun silh. also...rim fire and pistol cartridge (PC)..(our club is in the process of setting up the big bore 200 meter range this next year). I made Master in both the rimfire and PC a whole bunch of years ago with a Marlin 39a and a Marlin 1894 Cowboy in 45C. I still shoot the 45C, but switched to the Henry H0001TLB with the Williams TK rear and a Lyman 17A in the front...we actually had a match this past Sat...weather was a crisp 24F when we started, but no wind...only shot 30/40 with the 45C, but did something with the Henry I hadn't done before...shot a 38/40...missing 1 turkey and 1 ram...I use standard Vel for everything but the rams...where I use high vel...I actually hope some more of the folks on this sight start shooting this discipline as it truly is a HOOT! BobGinVA

[Sir Henry]

Good point Bandit1250, Not mine but I made one like it.

I had a rifle that shot around corners that took a brush like that.

[Joe.45]

I run boresnake a couple of times after every 800 or 1K rounds. It has worked for 20 years, no issues.